Recently, Whoopi Goldberg appeared as a guest on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox. This interview took place following a dust-up between the two personalities on The View during which O'Reilly said "Muslims killed us on 9/11". Goldberg walked off stage in a rage, believing that O'Reilly's comments were racist. That incident aside, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but was anyway, when Goldberg said that she didn''t know what a madrassa is. Madrassas have been discussed many times in many venues, yet Goldberg was clueless. What else should we expect, I guess, from starlets who beam their ideas out of Hollywood? O'Reilly tried to explain that the madrassas are being used to train radical Islamists.
Whoopi needs to do some homework, as do some who read the Huffington Post. Today someone posted the following comment on the Huffington Post:
O'Reilly is spreading ignorance.
The word "madrassa" is Arabic for school, and is commonly used throughout the Arab and Islamic world to refer to any place of learning in the same sense that, in the United States, the word "school" refers to a primary school, a high school or a university. It can be a secular school, a vocational school, a religious school or a technical school.
The negative connotation of the word "madrassa" as it's come to be understood in the English-speaking world--as referring to a place where fundamentalist, Islamic instruction is combined with anti-western vocations, or in the extreme, as a place where terrorists are formed ideologically--is largely an American and British conceit. It is for the most part, but not entirely, inaccurate."”
Oh, really! Then perhaps Whoopi and the person who penned the above remark should watch the video below and read the accompanying article. If you're a Whoopi fan, please direct her attention to this BBC video.
Saudi school lessons in UK concern government
BBC.co.uk
November 21, 2010
BBC Panorama found that more than 40 Saudi Students' Schools and Clubs are teaching the official Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 pupils.
One text book shows how the hands and feet of thieves are chopped off.
The Saudi government said it had no official ties to the part-time schools and clubs and did not endorse them.
However, a building in west London where Panorama obtained one of the text books is owned by the Saudi government.
[snip]
One of the text books asks children to list the "reprehensible" qualities of Jewish people. A text for younger children asks what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam - the answer given in the text book is "hellfire".
Another text describes the punishment for gay sex as death and states a difference of opinion about whether it should be carried out by stoning, burning with fire or throwing the person over a cliff.
In a book for 14-year-olds, Sharia law and its punishment for theft are explained, including detailed diagrams about how hands and feet of thieves are amputated.
Read more . . .
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